Rudolf Berger, Managing Director of Fleischwaren Berger (first from right), is satisfied with the performance of its 1,067 m² process heat installation, which has been in operation since July 2013. The solar plant can deliver usable heat at lower costs over a 25-year period than the existing oil boiler. A 140 m² system with parabolic trough collectors may follow soon. Solar process heat is one of the market segments with the highest growth potential over the coming decades. It could reduce the EU’s dependency on imported oil and gas significantly.

The current security of supply emergency is mainly a heating crisis. Pedro Dias, Secretary General of the European Solar Thermal Industry Federation welcomed “the European Commission’s proposal that Member States accelerate the fuel switch in the heating sector to renewable heating technologies as one of the key actions to be implemented.”

Swedish company Absolicon Solar Concentrator has developed a Solar Energy Calculator to enable commercial clients to determine the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) when purchasing and operating solar thermal systems with collector areas of between 500 and 5,000 m². “We were influenced by the PV sector, where customers are much more used to assessing solar investments based on the cash flow over the economic life of the system than based on the payback period,” CEO Joakim Byström explains. “Many projects with long payback periods fare much better if you calculate the IRR. The online tool has already been used by 70 potential clients from all around the world over the last 10 months.

On 3 and 4 June 2014, the halls of the old waterworks of municipal utility “Hamburg Energie” in Hamburg, Germany, became the venue for the 2nd International Solar District Conference. 115 participants from 13 countries and many different backgrounds were offered a wide range of presentations covering policy, market and technical issues, along with several practical examples of solar district heating plants. On top of that, the conference offered a technical tour to the solar district heating project “Energy Bunker” at the site of the International Building Exhibition IBA in Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg (see photo). The Energy Bunker is one of these lighthouse projects speakers and participants deemed nessessary to make solar district heating visible to consumers and politicians.

Just a few days before Intersolar Europe 2014 opened its doors in Munich, Germany, news broke of the merger between the two largest solar coating manufacturers in Europe, the Alanod Group, headquartered in Ennepetal, northern Germany, and the Almeco Group whose headquarters are located in Milano, Italy. The company will be called Alanod-Almeco, with headquarters in Ennepetal. Both partners have confirmed the plans to retain both the sales teams and the entire product offering. However, the facts contradict a merger between equals: Alanod is definitely the larger partner. The company with 460 staff had a turnover of EUR 160 million in 2013, whereas the Almeco Group with its 250 staff achieved a turnover of EUR 75 million last year and the new company will be headed by only one person, Ingo Beyer, CEO of the Alanod Group.

The world’s currently largest solar district heating plant was inaugurated in Dronninglund, Denmark, on 2 May this year by Rasmus Helveg Petersen, Danish Minister for Climate, Energy and Building. The system consists of 2,982 collectors with a total solar thermal capacity of 26 MWth (37,573 m²) and a 61,700 m³ seasonal pit heat storage. The system is planned to provide half of the annual heat demand of the plant’s 1,350 customers. According to the local district heating supplier Dronninglund Fjernvarme, the total investment costs for the plant amounted to DKK 106 million (EUR 14.6 million), of which EUR 6.1 million were invested in the solar installation.

The collector area sold in India during financial year April 2013 to March 2014 was obviously far below expectations: The relevant 65 channel partners achieved sales of 0.85 million m² collector area in these 12 months, almost half of what the companies had planned and reported to the MNRE at the beginning of the last financial year in April 2013. This is the result of the latest study carried out by Pune-based Malaviya Solar Energy Consultancy. Its team contacted all 65 MNRE-registered channel partners and asked them for both their planned and their actual sales figures in 2013/2014.